VicHealth’s Better Health Channel manager David Haubenschild told iTnews that developers took a layered approach to application and systems architecture, building a custom web API layer to draw together data from various sources.

But it was not the application, but the health data that cost the most to create, he said.

“Health information is expensive to make because you require all the different experts to be involved to make sure that all the information is absolutely reflective of latest research and clinical practice,” he explained.

“It doesn’t make sense that every jurisdiction has to repeat that so we’re in general talks about that being spread across other jurisdictions.”

Haubenschild credited Agile software development principles for the application’s speed to market.

“The more traditional approach government takes to development … is you plan something out for almost 12 months and you build a monolithic system,” he said. “We took an opposite approach.”

The department expected to release an Android version of the Better Health Channel application by mid-2012, choosing to build natively to deliver “the best possible [user] experience”.

It was also working on a platform-agnostic mobile web version that would use HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript for release in mid-2012.

Take part in discussions with comments on blogs, news and reviews; receive all the latest industry news directly to your inbox and tailor make your information specifically to your interests. Join now for free.

Please check your email

A confirmation email has been sent to your email address - SUPPLIED GOES EMAIL HERE. Please click on the link in the email to verify your email address. You need to verify your email before you can start posting.

If you do not receive your confirmation email within the next few minutes, it may be because the email has been captured by a junk mail filter. Please ensure you add the domain @itnews.com.au to your white-listed senders.